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Communications Management

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When Project Plans Go Awry or “Cherries Happen”- by Cassie Woolworth
Projects are supposed to be linear. Someone has an idea and the project team is charged with carrying out this idea. When well-intentioned plans go awry, communication is likely part of the problem. This article explains how to fix the communication problem by defining the linear component: Who impacts what? And: Who gets a say?

Mind the Gap: Collaboration for Project Success- by Venkatachaliah Babu Kanamanapalli, PMP
As the size and complexity of projects and programs increase, the need for effective team collaboration becomes even more important — the key is in the strength of the “network.” The author demonstrates how a visual representation of the collaborative network based on work dependencies and adopting social network analysis to derive meaningful insights can help identify “hot spots” and derive actionable inputs to strengthen collaboration.

Communication Barriers in the Client’s Workplace and Possible Solutions- by Deepa Gandhavalli Ramaniah, PMP
In this article, the author focuses on communication barriers that exist when a project manager works at the client’s location and manages an off-shore team. Processes within the Project Communications Management Knowledge Area are identified in which the project manager can proactively anticipate such communication barriers by broadening his or her planning scope along with solutions for tackling them.

Marketing in Project Management- by Durval Carvalho Avila Jacintho, PMP
Marketing is one of the most studied and analyzed fields of knowledge in the corporate world; therefore, its techniques and tools should be considered and applied to the environment of project management. This article analyzes the main concepts of marketing in the phases of a project or program, the key stakeholders and elements of marketing in a project, and also looks at an example of the positive use of marketing in Brazil’s Olympic bid.

Escalation—Let’s Do it Right!- by Hrishikesh Karekar, PMP
Don’t we all face situations in our work lives when we want to escalate, we do escalate, yet nothing happens? Let us take a deeper look at the phenomenon of escalation: what it is, when it is needed, how it is incorrectly done, often abused and, most importantly, how to do it right.

Project Performance Management Scorecard (PPMS) Using the ABSC Framework- by Ilango Vasudevan, PMP
This paper explains how the balanced scorecard (BSC) framework can be leveraged to enhance project performance management. The BSC framework is an effective tool to realizing enterprise strategy by cascading strategy into a set of objectives, key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, and targets across four dimensions: finance, customer, process, and learning/growth.

The Project Status Blog - by Michael Staples, PMPOf the many things that contribute to a project's success, few offer as much leverage as effective communication. Those of us who serve in project management roles are always looking for better ways to communicate, including the timely distribution of project status reports. This article focuses on the use of a blog to serve as the primary means of quickly disseminating project status. Unlike its web counterpart, the project status blog can and should have many authors, each reporting status for a specific portion of the project.

The Project Manager's Guide to Dealing with Difficult Sponsors - by Dana BrownleePart of the challenge that the project manager faces is the reality of having to serve so many different stakeholders and sometimes being pulled in very different directions. Most of us have been taught that our "sponsor" is the person who is the champion of the effort. Indeed, the sponsor is often the one that we are required to seek out for support and issue resolution throughout the project. So what do you do when your sponsor is the problem?

Communication Key to Rescuing Troubled Projects - by Christopher Snyder, PMPYou have just been assigned to manage a project that has already been started and is not performing. We will assume (although it is not necessarily a "given") that your manager has provided you with information on the project status so that you have an idea of what you are up against. The stakeholder, however, does not have a good picture of the current project status and is pressuring you for an update. The previous project manager may or may not be available. One thing is for certain, though: the more you start to investigate to determine the project status, the worse the picture becomes.

Building a Project Dashboard on a Small Budget Using Adobe Dreamweaver - by Randy Britsch, PMPCompanies that have been forced to virtually eliminate budgets for project information tools, file management tools, and communication tools risk having key decision-makers making uninformed decision about projects because they did not know important information, such as project constraints, issues, risks, key team members, and project priorities. This article shows how to alleviate this problem, using Dreamweaver CS4 to create an executive dashboard, a project-detail dashboard, and a project summary report that allow unencumbered project updating and easy dashboard maintenance, all with very little cost.

The Need to Communicate and Track Value Expectations - by Timothy Brion Ritter, PMPWe have all seen situations where the most mature and well-managed programs have been derailed through no fault of the program's implementation. Most frequently, the fault for thesefailures rests outside of the program manager's authority, but that does not mean that the program manager cannot defend against these interferences effectively through additional processes that communicate and track the value expectations for the program. The program manager can more effectively communicate with the strategic leadership in order to understand, develop metrics for, report, and track against the expectations of these external stakeholders to limit the damage that can be caused by rapidly changing expectations.

Assessing Project Health - by Nicolas De Dobbeleer, MSc, PMP, Managing Director, The Project Gold MineWhen we are discussing metrics within project management, it is important to look at the big picture. In this respect, all aspects of portfolio, program, and project management, as well as the organization performance, should be considered. In this article, we will focus on project health metrics that enable management to make critical decisions that help the project manager and his or her team succeed. Without objective metrics, it is difficult to judge whether a project is actually on track.

Are Project Management Skills Transferable? - by Jennifer Schmidt, PMPThe author recently had an opportunity to switch into a technical project manager role after being a business project manager for over 12 years. She traces her 18-month journey to learn what skills are easily portable and which ones needed refining or, worst case, acquiring. She focused on two main areas: communications and teamwork.